The Americans suggested that the ships be interned in a neutral port until a final decision was reached, but the two countries that were approached – Norway and Spain – both refused.

Meurer asked for an extension to the deadline, aware that the sailors were still in a mutinous mood (which earlier had led to the Wilhelmshaven mutiny), and that the officers might have difficulty in getting them to obey orders.

Hipper refused to lead the surface fleet to the surrender, delegating the task to Rear-Admiral Ludwig von Reuter.

[3][4] The fleet was then moved between 25 and 27 November to Scapa Flow; the destroyers to Gutter Sound and the battleships and cruisers to the north and west of the island of Cava.

[5] Eventually, a total of 74 ships were interned there, König and Dresden having arrived on 6 December accompanied by the destroyer V129, which replaced the sunken V30.

[7] The naval historian Arthur Marder described the state of affairs on board the German ships during the internment as "one of complete demoralization".

[8] On 29 November the Second-in-Command of the Grand Fleet, Admiral Sir Charles Madden, wrote to his brother-in-law and former superior Lord Jellicoe that, "All proposed orders are considered and counter-signed by the men's committee before they are executed and then they are carried out as convenient".

[13] Reuter, whose health was poor, requested that his flag be transferred to the light cruiser Emden on 25 March after he was repeatedly prevented from sleeping by the stomping on his cabin roof by a group of revolutionary sailors called the "Red Guard".

[18] A further reduction of crews with the departure of two transports to Germany on 18 June 1919 meant that Reuter was left with reliable men to carry out preparations.

[19] On that day he sent out orders, paragraph 11 of which stated: "It is my intention to sink the ships only if the enemy should attempt to obtain possession of them without the assent of our government.

[21] The operation to seize the German ships was postponed until the night of his squadron's return to Scapa Flow on 23 June, after the deadline to sign the treaty had expired.

[26] Portholes had already been loosened, watertight doors and condenser covers left open, and in some ships holes had been bored through bulkheads, all to facilitate the spread of water once scuttling began.

[26] One German ship commander recorded that before 21 June, seacocks had been set on a hair turning and heavily lubricated, while large hammers had been placed besides valves.

There was no noticeable effect until noon, when Friedrich der Grosse began to list heavily to starboard and all the ships hoisted the Imperial German Ensign at their mainmasts.

[28] The British naval forces left at Scapa Flow comprised three destroyers, one of which was under repair, seven trawlers and a number of drifters.

[24][25] Fremantle started receiving news of the scuttling at 12:20 and cancelled his squadron's exercise at 12:35, steaming at full speed back to Scapa Flow.

[31] Fremantle had sent out a general order declaring that the Germans were to be treated as prisoners-of-war for having broken the armistice and they were destined for the prisoner-of-war camps at Nigg.

[32] Admiral Fremantle subsequently remarked privately, "I could not resist feeling some sympathy for Reuter, who had preserved his dignity when placed against his will in a highly unpleasant and invidious position.

The beached ships were later dispersed to the allied navies, but most of the sunken ships were initially left at the bottom of Scapa Flow, the cost of salvaging them being deemed to be not worth the potential returns, owing to the glut of scrap metal left after the end of the war, with plenty of obsolete warships having been broken up.

He developed a new salvage technique whereby divers patched the holes in the submerged hulls, and pumped air into them to displace the water, letting them rise to the surface where they could then be towed to the breakers.

[34] Cox sold his remaining interests to the Alloa Shipbreaking Company (later Metal Industries Group) and retired as the "man who bought a navy".

[2] The remaining wrecks lie in deeper waters, in depths up to 47 metres (154 ft) and there has been no economic incentive to attempt to raise them since.

[citation needed] While the rebuilding of the German Army in the 1930s was based upon the combined myths of "invincibility on the battlefield" and the "stab in the back", the attitude and actions of the High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow became a symbol of defiance for the new recruits and officers of the Kriegsmarine.

[40] An eyewitness account of the scuttling and the subsequent angry meeting between Reuter and Fremantle was published in 2015 by the family of Hugh David, who died in 1957.

[41] In 2019, the three battleships Markgraf, König and Kronprinz Wilhelm were sold on eBay (by the retiring diving contractor Tommy Clark) for £25,500 each to a Middle Eastern company.

[42] Two remembrance ceremonies took place on Friday 21 June 2019 to mark the 100th anniversary of the scuttling of the German High Seas Fleet.

[43] The circumstances of the event as well as computer generated 'scans' of the remaining scuttled ships on the seabed featured in an episode of the National Geographic documentary Drain the Oceans.